In 2019, when Donald Trump first raised the prospect of the US buying Greenland, few folks took it significantly. However right now, firstly of his second time period as president, when Trump says “I think we’re going to have it”, his phrases ring alarm bells.
To seek out out why the world’s largest island is of such enduring curiosity to Trump, Miranda Bryant, the Guardian’s Nordic correspondent, not too long ago travelled to Greenland’s capital, Nuuk. There, she tells Helen Pidd, Greenlanders are properly conscious of the minerals and strategic worth that their island holds, particularly because the altering local weather is accelerating superpower competitors within the Arctic.
Miranda additionally learns that Trump’s consideration is properly timed, as after a sequence of scandals Greenlanders are more and more contemplating their relationship with Denmark and the prospect of independence. And the US is not any stranger to the island, with a army base and heat relations that stretch again to the second world battle.
Nevertheless, whereas Greenland is clearly on the frontline of Trump’s expansionist second-term ambitions, if Greenlanders are to have a say in their very own future, Miranda believes they’re much extra prone to go for a type of cooperation reasonably than their island being “bought or sold” by anybody.
